New Year’s Mysterious Meteor Shower—Here’s How Astronomers Explain Its Sudden Arrival

A meteor shower is shown in a composite picture designed by The Epoch Times. Shutterstock/vovan

They might wink at you once or twice before Christmas, or even flicker in the sky while people wear their Remembrance Day poppies weeks earlier. But for the annual meteor shower called the Quadrantids, the party doesn’t truly get started until January.

If things go the way astronomers say they will, the Quadrantids will peak suddenly on Jan. 3, 2025, reaching their height at 2 p.m. EST. Viewing them will require punctuality because they won’t last, ending as abruptly as they started.

Here’s what you need to know.

Come 2025, the Quadrantids will reveal their odd nature—a meteor shower unlike others we know of. Their explosive arrival and mysterious origins defy meteor logic.

Meteors begin their icy existence in space. When frozen bits of debris intersect with Earth as it orbits the sun, they fall into our atmosphere and burn up to become what people popularly term “shooting stars.” Astronomers called them meteors.

There are many famous meteor showers every year. Each begins from a great stream of debris strewn across the solar system, and they appear on fairly regularly, falling steadily for days to weeks.

But the Quadrantids are different. These meteors are strangely omnipresent, though in very scarce numbers, from mid-November through January. Yet peak time—in early January—lasts mere hours.

A meteor streaks across the sky above Inspiration Point early in Bryce Canyon National Park, Utah, on Aug. 12, 2016. Ethan Miller/Getty Images

Fortunately, astronomers are noting that the peak period in 2025 coincides with a moon-free sky. The darker the skies, the more meteors can be seen. As the first quarter moon falls on Jan. 6, a waxing crescent will set several hours after sunset during the peak meteor period and not interfere with anyone’s view of the Quadrantids. There will be optimal viewing for a very short window.

Viewing the Quadrantids

Where does one begin looking for the Quadrantids?

Meteors themselves appear to shoot from a single point in the sky’s dome called the radiant. The Quadrantids’ radiant can be located by drawing a right angle from the Big Dipper to the bright star Arcturus. These meteors’ radiant is in the now-antiquated constellation Quadrans Muralis—hence their name “Quadrantids”—between the modern constellations Boötes and Draco the Dragon.

The best way to view meteors is to observe the whole open sky, since they may appear anywhere above the horizon, and not from the radiant at all.

The Quadrantids meet at a right angle between the Big Dipper and the bright star Arcturus. Designed by The Epoch Times

Yet viewing is best when the radiant is high in the sky, which means more prime real estate all around to offer potential meteors. Fortunately for Canadian observers, the Quadrantids’ radiant—and the obsolete constellation Quadrans Muralis—is far north in the stars’ dome, giving ample opportunities.

For this reason, the Quadrantids really are a northern hemisphere event, offering very few, if any, shooting stars to people south of the equator.

The Origin of the Quadrantids

All this talk of constellations may mislead the reader to believe meteors hail from those several stars and fly all the way here. Although their radiant point remains fixed in a constellation, they bide nowhere near there. It’s merely a trick of perspective that makes meteors seem to converge from a point, like how train tracks seem to converge on the horizon but don’t really meet.

Never mind the constellation, which may be tens of lightyears away. Meteors—including the Quadrantids—are much closer to home, floating in parallel along great orbits around our sun.

Tracing their origins back further, the Quadrantids are more mysterious than other meteor showers.

Most meteor showers are caused by comets, chunks of frozen gas that travel in huge orbits around the sun and shed vast complexes of matter in their wake. Astronomers can usually link a meteor shower to its parent comet since they typically traverse the same orbit, and both may be observed when they intersect Earth.

Not so with the Quadrantids.

Not only do the Quadrantids not follow the same orbit as their parent object, but they may have multiple parents—not just one.

The chief object that spawned the Quadrantids seems to be an asteroid, or space rock, named 2003 EH1, believed to be an extinct comet. It shed all its volatile matter and left a rocky nucleus behind. But, unlike its offspring meteors, 2003 EH1, which takes 5.5 years to orbit the sun, travels nowhere near Earth. Astronomers say it must have been much closer centuries ago and can only speculate why.

Oddly, at least two more objects are also believed to be responsible for the Quadrantids. Astronomers say Comet 96P/Machholz is one of them, and it may affect the Quadrantids’ arrival, making their peak “less intense and shallower.” Unlike 2003 EH1, this comet does pass by Earth every 5.3 years. The last time was in January 2023.

Comet 96P/Machholz. Public Domain/NASA

There may even be a third “great” comet behind the Quadrantids. Scientists think it broke up nearly 2,000 years ago and produced the Machholz Complex, which includes the aforementioned parent objects, the Marsden and Kracht Comet groups, and eight other meteor showers.

Even more comets might be involved that no longer exist. Comet C/1490 Y1 was last seen in 1490. But experts say it might have passed too close to Jupiter and been thrown out of the solar system long ago, or broken into pieces to join the Machholz Complex.

The bottom line? The enigmatic and mysterious Quadrantids will perform their big solo in a moonless sky soon after New Year’s 2025.